Saturday, November 23, 2013

Crossfit for better fitness

Since my injury, I have been trying to focus more on cross training.  First, I started with swimming because I wanted something that was high in cardio but not such intense impact on my body.  I've definitely been enjoying it!  This week, I took my first CrossFit class, which was definitely an interesting experience.

The hour long class included sets of push ups, burpees, sit ups, squats, and weight lifting.  It was pretty intense.  I enjoyed it but came to the realization that I have the upper body strength of a newborn baby squirrel.  I truly am a pathetic human being.  But I totally see the potential in myself to become a physically strong and fit human being!

With that said, I took the class on Tuesday.  It is now Saturday and my arms still hurt.  Now, part of that is back to my child like upper body strength, but it's also because the trainers spent no time on any kind of warm up or pre/post stretches.  In my head, I knew I should have taken the initiative to stretch myself.  But, like what often happens with runners, I thought I could skip it and be just fine.  I accepted the fact that I would be a little sore and just kept it moving.  I started regretting that decision within the hour.

When you do absolutely no strength training, especially from the waist up, you have to be extra kind to yourself.  I kicked myself for not learning from my running injuries and letting myself get so lazy.  I am letting my muscles completely heal before I go back to another class.  But I am still glad I went.  I can definitely see how it will improve my running.  Between the squats and core work, this type of workout will help me become a stronger runner.

I am excited to say that I did AWESOME on the squats.  I used to be terrified to do squats because it would always hurt my knee.  I've been that way since high school.  I was glad to take the chance to do a couple of squats in the beginning, because I ended up rocking them out for the rest of the hour.  That was actually the easiest part for me!  I could have probably done 100 squats without breaking a sweat.  Ok, that might be overshooting it, but that's how good I felt!  I know that has a lot to do with my training over the last  7 months.

I have to take the time to realize that it took me 7 months to become the runner I am today, and I am still no where near the runner I want to be.  But I have made significant progress.  I have to remember slow and steady wins the race, because if I try to rush these CrossFit classes, just to prove a point that "I can do it," I'm gonna end up hurting myself and not being able to work out the way I want to.  I'm excited though to see what the next few months will look like as far as my fitness goes.  Hopefully it includes steady improvements and no more injuries!

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